When I Get My Bolshevik Blood Up

I came across the title of this song in Michael Kilgarriff’s book “Sing us some of the old songs, A guide to popular song 1860 – 1920” and had to dig it out at the British Library.

Disappointingly, but not really surprisingly it turned out to be very anti Bolshevik, so I don’t think I’ll be singing it out. That’s a shame because it actually has some very good jokes in it.

Music Hall was a very commercial form, and so it’s not a surprise that references to the Russian Revolution would most likely be disparaging or mocking. It would be great to dig up some pro-revolutionary music hall material.

Here’s the sheet music for those who might be interested. Click on the image to get a PDF. It was copied using a smartphone which is why it’s a bit wavy.